Home for the Holidays

The holiday season is a time for joyous reunions with rarely seen family members. With that in mind Rocket Bill Ladson tears himself away from his third bucket o' eggnog to report that the Nats have resigned veteran lefty Mike Stanton to a one-year, $1 million deal (or, to put it another way, $725,000 less than Marbert Fickerson will be making.) Stanton pitched effectively for the Nats last season, and $1 million for a left-handed pitcher is practically free. With Stanton and Joey Eischen in the bullpen Cap'n Hook and Eddie "Mr. Smee" Rodriguez will be free to make even more unnecessary and counterproductive pitching changes.

In the spirit of holiday reconciliation, Jose Vidro pulls a Tupac and tosses an "I Ain't Mad at Cha" in the general direction of noted T.O. impersonator Alfonso Soriano. In an attempt to divine a silver lining from this situation, I'm looking forward to the inevitable Vidro-Soriano showdown wherein a wiry, quicker Soriano repeatedly rabbit-punches Vidro but is ulimate defeated when Jose sits on him and refuses to get up until Alf agrees to go stand out in left and pretend to care.

Elsewhere: The Nats blogosphere is mostly quiet, undoubtedly sleeping off their holiday cheer. For seasonal goodness Federal Baseball has Part 1 of a Natsmas Miracle!